Road to VR analysis of the latest data from Valve’s Steam Hardware & Software shows that VR users on Steam have not only been growing, but are at their highest point in history.

First generation VR hardware may not yet have had its mass adoption moment, but pundits claiming the end is near for VR are overlooking strong evidence against their claims. Not only has the tech fostered a strong enthusiast community, but that group continues to grow. In fact, in November there were more VR users on Steam than ever before.

According to the latest figures from the Steam Hardware & Software survey, 0.78% of all Steam users have VR headsets connected to their computers and are ready to play. Using expanded and refined methodology which we detailed last monthRoad to VR estimates that works out to just over 700,000 VR users on Steam over the course of November. That’s more than any prior month and 276% of VR users compared to 18 months prior.

Looking at the overall trend of VR users on Steam, growth actually appears to be on the upswing.

Data courtesy Valve | Mind the gap (seven months of erroneous data due to a Valve collection issue)

Steam isn’t the only player in the space of course, and while we don’t have direct insight into Oculus’ platform, the fact that the Rift is counted among the headsets in the Steam Hardware & Software survey—and that it’s holding a steady market share relative to other headsets on Steam—we suspect that VR users on Oculus’ platform are at or near a high point, and that the platform is seeing a similar growth trajectory.

We have almost no insight into usage of PlayStation VR, but we at least know that Sony has been happy with sales figures—as the only one of the big three to share such figures, the company revealed in August that they passed the 3 million unit mark. We expect that their big holiday discounts, appealing bundles, and increasingly strong content library will push the headset to the 4 million milestone sooner rather than later.

SEE ALSO
Pressure Mounts for Xbox's Missing VR Strategy as PSVR Revenue Exceeds $2 Billion

As for the pundits ringing the death knell—rarely do they make the key distinction between ‘VR is dying’ and ‘VR didn’t meet some years-old growth projections made before any hardware had actually reached the market’. VR’s mainstream moment hasn’t come yet, but in the meantime there’s still a growing group of early adopters who have collectively spent billions on VR hardware and content.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • JesuSaveSouls

    Vr is only dying to those who haven’t tried it,haven’t invested in it or can’t afford it.

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      Yup! My non VR friend voided all my thoughts posting links saying how VR is dead and he doesn’t own a VR. It’s “dying” because he (and others) want it to die without really seeing what makes VR awesome. Once you PROPERLY try VR there’s no going back to desktop mode. Well, except for humid & sick days.

      • Fred hgggg

        I actually played some BeatSaber to help with my cold. Really opened the nasal passages.

    • sfmike

      These are the same people that destroyed 3D TV as it was the people that didn’t have one or were even interested in trying it that were most vocal about how it was a failure and needed to go away just because they weren’t interested. Fortunately these naysayers have not been as successful at painting VR as a useless “gimmick” and the user base is growing.

      • impurekind

        Nah, 3D TVs destroyed themselves because they were indeed just a stop-gap gimmick for the most part. No one wants to have to wear those glasses just to view movies in 3D on their home TVs. Maybe one day when 3D TVs don’t require the stupid glasses (and more than one person can still view them in 3D too) they will have their day. Because the idea of watching movies in 3D at home is a sound idea, but the technology just isn’t right yet.

        VR on the other hand is already amazing and is just going to get better and better. In fact, and this is slightly ironic, the best 3D movie I’ve ever seen was The Lion King 3D (or the traditionally animated parts of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water in 3D) on a giant virtual screen inside a private virtual cinema on my Oculus Rift–and The Lion King wasn’t even originally made to be viewed in 3D at all.

        • Raphael

          I used 3d glasses with my LG 3d monitor for years until Octopus DK2 came along. But 3d TV suffered a persistent hate campaign from trolls and those same trolls think they can do the same with VR. Unfortunately they are going to be in for a nasty surprise. VR is an inevitable technology.

          • care package

            You used to have your own preference in peace. Social engineering has led to many thinking they need to go to war now against what isn’t their preference.

          • Raphael

            Technology wars… I suspect that if everyone had the same skin and hair color – with eye color being the only variable… we’d have segregation and ethnic cleansing over people with the “wrong eyes”

          • Flo’s Attic

            Or the nipple race wars like in that episode of Rick and Morty.

          • Raphael

            Now I must go and watch that..

          • impurekind

            Yeah, I think those stop-gap 3D TVs with glasses required were always going to die a death in the near future–and maybe one day we’ll get proper 3D TVs that don’t require the glasses at all and that will be great–but VR is the future. Not that I’m saying VR will replace everything else, but it will be, by far, thee most immersive and satisfying gaming and entertainment platform in the years to come. In fact, it already is imo, even in its limited first generation iteration–that’s just how good it is.

          • Trent Stager

            I believe it will replace everything eventually. Once the technology reaches the point where it is a direct jack into the human brain. It will get there probably in the next 20 years definitely within 40 years.

        • namekuseijin

          3D TV simply has no content. a few movies and youtube clips won’t cut it. No mainstream TV broadcasting of 3D, that’s what killed it. No such doom for VR, which gets more games, short movies and, yes, porn adoption too, by the day

          BTW, it’s ironical that it is far more comfortable and cheaper having several people wearing light 3D glasses to watch a 3D movie on a single TV than 1 gamer alone wearing a heavy VR headset

          • care package

            You ask me what killed it was there were 2 types of TV 3D. Active, and passive. In both cases you needed to wear glasses, but the passive wasn’t nearly as 3D as the active. The active dimmed the image too much. In short the tech was poor. Once the novelty wore off the minuses out grew the positives. Content was the same as always. A ‘wait and see’ approach.

          • Proof XR Lab

            3D in cinema was not great either. Avatar had great “3D” but a dim image, i watched it again a week later in 2D at another cinema, much brighter and more vivid. Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows pt. 1 was like watching through a dark filter in 3D. Many 3D films were conversion jobs in post production, rather than filmed with 3D camera on set.

          • care package

            Ya that’s where you 3 types of 3D come in. The most basic is 3D converstion on the fly (stereoscopic), then the official 3D converted, and then the filmed in 3D.

          • Proof XR Lab

            The best 3D i tried was at the Oakley store in London, they had a huge 3D panel with active glasses and a special reel showing Oakley athletes wakeboarding, snowboarding,etc. shot i was told using RED 3D camera.

          • NooYawker

            I enjoyed the 3D in Avatar, but I remember watching it in 2D and thought, wow what a shitty movie.

          • Trent Stager

            3d looks best in a virtual cinema in VR. I’ve watched movie after movie and they are all better than at the cinema.

          • Trent Stager

            The new Samsung Odyssey + eliminates SDE. Its pretty amazing.

          • I’ve got one. It’s fantastic!

          • NooYawker

            Today every movie comes out in 3D, I think if they tried they can make another go of 3D TV’s since there’s tons of content now.

          • impurekind

            But the difference in experience when wearing that one VR headset vs those glasses with your TV is huge. I hate having to wear stupid glasses just to watch a 3D movie. I love how much watching a 3D movie in VR adds to the entire experience–and this is just the start of what we can do with movies in VR.

        • trekkie

          @impurekind Yes, who needs even a “stupid” TV ? Why can’t they beam the channels directly into my head ??? I am sick and tired of these boneheaded comments where someone who knows zilch talks as if they everything under the sun and solutions are so obvious that the world is full of stupid people.

          • impurekind

            They can already do 3D without glasses, and even with more than one viewing angle for multiple people. It’s just a matter of time before someone prefects it for consumer TVs, presuming people are still interested in such a thing by the time it happens. To be honest, for most people who are interested in 3D, they’ll likely just go with AR or VR in the future, and they can stick with the normal flat TV for regular viewing (or still use AR/VR for that too).

          • trekkie

            So you dont like wearing glasses but don’t mind forcing people to sit rigidly in specific locations in the room…

          • impurekind

            Well, the ideal solution actually lets you move around between the angles and still see the 3D–and that too is something that’s being worked on (or was a while back at least).

        • domahman

          They will embed goggles to every newborn.

      • Adrian Meredith

        I loved 3d TV and am angry at it being phased out so fast. To add insult to injury they’re still bringing our films in 3d format. Also they killed it just at the point where OLED was becoming the defacto TV technology and add such there’s no TV that quite nailed it. I’ve not bought a new TV for that very reason

        • TheNexusLord

          I still buy 3D format, whenever available, for watching in VR! VR is the killer application for 3D movies and content, not flat box tv’s. ;0)

          • FriendlyCard

            How to you watch 3D movies in VR?

        • Trent Stager

          3d is best done in VR anyway. I really hope that it will live on, there.

      • DeusVult

        Except to this date it is a gimmick with hardly anything to show for itself. AR shows far more promise.

  • Wolfkolf

    Just got a 2nd headset for my house. VR LAN parties abound!

    • Same here –second headset. VR isn’t in any danger of dying, if I have anything to do with it. ;)

    • Same here. The OD+ deal was too good to miss and I can always sell it for profit. Now I just need to build that 2nd VR pc

    • Joshwa Sanders

      What games are good for VR LAN?

  • Scarab83

    Oooh, almost a whole 1%. Look at those numbers skyrocket…

    • Ben

      Percent of users using 4k primary display resolution?
      1.45%

      Simpler to get into 4k, yet VR is not lagging far behind.

      Even standard 1440p, the quintessential holy grail of resolution vs framerate vs cost, has a meager 3.87% if we want to point out small numbers.

      The only thing we really learn from how small these percentages are is that enthusiast PC gaming is niche when looking at the big picture. The vast majority of PC gaming is casual, not enthusiast.

    • Energon

      Yeah that graph is grossly exaggerated giving everyone here a false boner and hiding behind the “it’s early adopter” scapegoat. VR is not exploding. Compared to a true mainstream console, it’s receding. Linear 0.3% steam growth per year for several years reads as unprofitable for any financial advisor. It’s no wonder why nobody wants to hop onto the scene. If anything this article should read how there hasn’t been a change in the curve’s velocity or acceleration. But hey, it’s the editor’s job. Wouldn’t shoot himself in the foot.

      Not to mention the technical setbacks the hardware industry has been hit with due to monopolistic strategies from Nvidia and Intel. And of course Facebook completely changing the Rift’s strategy due to internal differences and meeting stockholder expectations sooner.

      • care package

        stockholders turn everything they touch to shit.

        • Proof XR Lab

          Check out the song by Run The Jewels, “A report to the shareholders / Kill your masters”.

      • benz145

        I could have thrown an exponential trendline which would have given you the curve you want to see but that felt premature; the only reason I included a trendline . That fact that growth continues is a good sign, VR has a good and growing early adopter foundation. Anyone thinking that VR was going to take off like the iPhone clearly forgot about the years of smartphone development that preceded it.

      • Lulu Vi Britannia

        It’s stupid to compare VR market with consoles market. The latter has been here for several decades. And guess what? It started just like VR: with the slow growth and all the shit talk.
        VR has been around for only 3 years and it’s been sold in millions units. That’s not an explosion, but it’s still a nice start for a new tech, and it’s still growing.

    • DeusVult

      And how many of that 1% are actually using it on a regular basis; how many are the same person with multiple VR headsets?

  • 3872Orcs

    We’re slowly getting there. I would think the cheap windows mixed reality headsets with their easy setups and low minimum pc requirement helps a lot. Most people can afford and run VR easily now. Though I can’t wait until the next wave of the tech arrives. It’ll be very interesting to see the impact on the market say if Valve release an affordable VR bundle with a Half Life game.

  • NooYawker

    It’s always people who never tried VR and compares VR to 3D tvs who say VR is dying.

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      I keep seeing people saying VR is like 3D TVs that they keep making stupid excuses they read online using the exact same thing parroting it. They don’t own VR that they then use 3D TVs… Can you wear 3D Tvs? No? That’s the point? You can wear VR headsets but not 3D TVs, thus why VR is awesome.

      ALl the fun memories I’ve made in VRchat <3. I had fun with Beat Saber, Rolling Line, Tales of Glory, Furious Seas, among others. Even Scanner Sombre <3

      • benz145

        I thought we were well past such off-base arguements by now. I headed that one off more than three years ago : P

        https://www.roadtovr.com/the-3-most-common-arguments-against-vr-and-why-theyre-wrong/

        • NooYawker

          This should be listed under related articles.

        • Arcticu Kitsu

          Nice! I’m going to bookmark that plus share that link around now that you’ve posted it. Man, people can get so bitter and weird that they keep parroting things. If you have free time feel free to check out all the VR supported games on Steam to check their steam forums for a VR thread asking for support…. You’ll see me at times while seeing more people saying how it’s like 3D TVs… Really now….

          People just want to see things die. It’s a shame. *grabs the article link*

    • DeusVult

      False, I’ve owned VR since the DK2 and it is an incredibly underwhelming experience with B team level content to date.

  • Ellon Musk

    I wouldn’t necessarily argue that VR is dying but it certainly isn’t ready

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      Not ready? In what way? VR is waiting for developers to make games that they’re making all sorts of lame excuses as to why they can’t make their games VR supported while other developers quietly add VR support without any excuses.

      Bandai-Namco has the funds and resources to make a proper Gundam VR game, yet refusing to. Same with Macross, or any anime or North American & European themed game.

      Maybe I’m missing something from your comment just that it’s at the “right time”. 2017 maybe not, 2018 yes… we’re ready. May need your full hidden thoughts for context though.

      • Yawe

        You are proving his point by highlighting how VR is waiting for things to happen. How there are companies with the funds to make VR games yet they don’t. Not making games because there is no financial gain is not an “excuse” in business. VR is in general is a non-profitable high stakes market.

        • Arcticu Kitsu

          Well, it’s both “waiting” and “in progress” that there are also games out there to play. In in both states just that it was easier for me to point it at “waiting” because game developers would much rather screw their consumer base instead of doing their job. VR is an interesting place to be and note because everything seems to contradict one another with how things keep progressing.

      • care package

        Still mostly comprised of Indie devs. VR didn’t go in the direction I was hoping it would, especially after getting teased with Alien Isolation. I want to play AAA titles in VR. They barely trickle in, with exclusivity deals tied to them. Instead we’re getting motion control focused games that are just a bit better than before. I understand motion controls, and even admit it enhances immersion, but they aren’t the 40+ hour games I can just relax and soak into. It’s probably why my HMD just sits now and I went back to flat screen gaming. VR may never be for me. Oh well.

        • Arcticu Kitsu

          Yeah, it is indeed all indie developers right now because AAA game companies are too busy screwing up right now with all their scamming nonsense & such, or so we’re hearing. Ubisoft did try and pitch in just that they’re still screwing up at the job they were tasked with to make games. There’s some nice charm seeing indie developers make a game that AAA game developers won’t that they see a void, filling it. Granted, we do need AAA support, just that they prefer a mobile market or easy money.

          I agree with your posting that we need more games with 40+ hours. They’re also there that you can play for 40+ hours. Deisim, Tales of Glory, Zero Caliber (maybe), & ‘No King No Kingdom’? Slime Rancher in VR? Do those work for you? I’m still trying to compile a VR gaming list.

          My VR is only sidelined because of work while I type with a runny nose. Flu/cold, or whatever I caught. When I do play VR I mostly go to VRchat but I do play other games. Try and linger in VRchat to see what happens? There’s awesome places to visit that you should visit if you haven’t.

          • Flo’s Attic

            We need some Metal Gear Solid VR Missions, like for real VR Missions this time. lol

          • Arcticu Kitsu

            Oh, that would be awesome. I +1 that idea :)

      • Varmintb4by

        Dude what is it with you and this Gundam game? There are other VR experiences and games that need to be made. RE7 for PSVR is a masterpiece and sold a lot of PSVRs once people tried it. Why hasn’t that been brought to PC VR users? Why isn’t the RE2 remake in VR like that? That’s the type of games we need to sell people on VR and make them want to buy one. I use NextVR to watch NBA games sometimes, but you can barely see the players faces on that. It’s like watching a game in 1980 again. A lot of things need to improve with VR like resolution, etc before it can really take off. I hope it does because I like the tech and see a lot of potential in it. Only time will tell.

        • Arcticu Kitsu

          What’s with me and the Gundam game? If you saw the demand for it you would be saying the same thing I am going “Wtf?! Why aren’t you making it yet?!” type reaction. It’s the most common sense thing to do, yet Bandai-Namco won’t go the route they’ve gone through with Gundam games for PS3 & PS2… Even PS1, or Dreamcast. I’ve made a Youtube video which people commented saying they genuinely want a Gundam VR game as well. Even a Gamefaqs posting, reddit…. It’s honestly baffling.

          I’m aware other types of games need to be made or ported as well, and I do agree with that as well. I agree that we should also be pushing for RE7 to be on PC then. Wish Falcon Age was also a PC title. PSVR deserves that title.

          Well, I do agree resolution may be “grainy” just that there’s also things you tend to spot that you can’t in desktop mode just because it’s VR that it’s neat; That you’re actually there. I wear glasses so I lose some focus yet what I see is still glorious. Even as it is now it’s still awesome that we’re on a solid footing of VR that I can even make things out in the dark. Most of my experiences are in VRchat though, gradually expanding outward.

    • Hivemind9000

      I wouldn’t say it’s “not ready” – more like “it’s not there yet”. It’s ready at a basic level – VR (especially on the PS4) is now accessible and relatively cheap, and there are millions using and enjoying it. Platforms like Oculus Go and Quest should extend the casual user base further.

      However, for it to be the wholly immersive VR we’ve been dreaming of, there’s still a number of technologies needing further development – wide FOV, foveated rendering, varifocal lenses, 8k+ resolution screens, reliable inside-out tracking, tetherless (and easy to set up and go) headsets etc.

      I personally think the biggest challenge is haptics/UX. Controllers still seem clumsy and vague to me, and at times I want to use my keyboard and mouse (which I can’t see). We need a more dexterous interface with touch feedback – gloves with restrictive/touch capabilities. People are working on all these things, but it’s going to take a while before they get good enough and cheap enough for consumers…

    • crim3

      I’ve had my vive for more than 2 years now. Using it profusely. I just get a WMR headset. Overall it’s rubish in comparison, but just the increased resolution makes a world of difference to the point I can’t go back to my Vive. It has opened my eyes to the fact that the Vive and the Rift wasn’t ready to be sold to the market with that resolution.

  • dogbite

    PC gaming has been dying for decades too, lol. Now, there’s a billion+ players on Steam. Those who predict the death of VR don’t understand the term “early adopters”.
    Most of the pc vr users that I have read commenting on it, say they can go back to flatland (this user included) despite the early imperfections. They same is being said by those who have experienced the 2nd gen fov of the Pimax, about returning to gen1 fov.
    I have played electronic games since Pong and have no doubt that as the song says “We’ve Only Just Begun.

    • †Fantasiian†

      Hear Hear !

    • care package

      PC gaming was in danger of dying though. Steam single handedly brought it back from near death. ‘They’ tried to kill the PC desktop via marketing for throw away tablets and laptops when they were big there for a while. All those articles talking about the death of the desktop. Ya didn’t work for them because of PC gaming IMO, because the timing was right around the same time gamers were jumping ship from console due to underperformance (PS3 and Xbox360 days).

      • dogbite

        Bill Gates almost missed the importance of pc gaming (and the internet). When Gates hired an Intel exec named Alex St John as MS’s Games Evangelist, the development of DirectX was born. That is what solidified pc as a gaming platform.

        Steam came much later and took quite a while to gain acceptance as a distribution model for software but did advance the growth of the platform especially in terms of game cost, but the power of the pc, the modular nature of it, the modding community, the expandability and such all play into why the pc survives and will. After all we write the games on PC and have been telling the kids for years -“hey you know that console you got? it’s got a pc inside- it’s just missing the KB/M

        • care package

          Umhum…ok

    • Raphael

      I remember reading shitbait journalist articles a few years ago saying high-end gaming PCs are dying along with general PC hardware. Meanwhile 8-pack is still building and selling £30,000 overclocked liquid-cooled gaming PCs.

  • it’s not dying. but if i’m honest i’m bored with VR I stop playing my rift about 2 months ago I keep waiting for something exciting to play

  • Riley Prescott

    I have a headset and I really like being in VR games.
    However since buying my Rift, I feel like it has mostly sat on my desk as a trophy.
    It’s fun to show friends, but the novelty of beat saber can only go so far.
    My favorite games were Orbus and Skyrim VR, but dealing with the cameras always unsyncing / disconnecting, having to clear space and put my gear on, and then praying that things launch on the first try are things that prevent me from going back.

    I do really love VR, but I feel like these are things that keep people out of the game.
    We need a really kickass game that really draws people in, or even hybrid games where people can play in VR for part of it.

    The tech still is moving forward and VR is not “Dying”, but I do believe that it’s not moving as fast as some investors thought it would which may mean it’s not doing as well as the big wigs thought it would.

    What do you guys think?

    • gothicvillas

      Beat Saber… over 300 great tracks beatmaps in my library. Now perhaps counting well over 200hrs. Elite Dangerous is wow wow wow. There are games. Space? Clean up your junk and make a 2x2m space. whats so hard there?

    • antonio mora

      I have everything set. I just turn on my PC, put on my HMD and play. No problems at all.
      I highly recommend a third sensor for rift users, and invest more on immersion (HOTAS for flying games and Wheel, pedals, shifter for driving games) Is a game changer believe you me.

    • Scoopskie

      I have a Rift and a PSVR and while I enjoy using the Rift and playing certain games, my friends and I play Firewall on PSVR almost daily. Not to mention, i’ve met many new online friends on Firewall. No it isn’t the perfect game with the sometimes wonky PSVR tracking, but I think the simplicity of PSVR plug and play is what draws many people in. I personally don’t mind tinkering with my Oculus and PCVR but I think the simplicity of a console base VR ecosystem is what will drive mass VR adoption. Some people get intimidated PC based gaming. Let’s face it, we’ve all had to deal with troubleshooting at some point.

      • Rowdy123

        Agreed. Had to tinker with Samsung Odysee+ for so long … full OS and driver updates … uninstalling and reinstalling things … different ports … etc. Sent it back. Plug and play is the future.

      • Gato Satanista

        True. I got an above average system and sometimes things don’t work. Doom VFR for example. I had to use a third party uninstaller to get rid of my Nvidia driver and reinstall a new one to get it working. And how I found the solution? After some good amount of time searching in foruns. Last week I discovered that some games run better after I disabled an obscure option on the Nvidia driver settings. And this is just some isolated cases. As a long time PC user I am somehow ok with this extra work. But a lot of people in the world no.

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      VRchat is the cradle for VR from my side. You have to be introduced to VR from VRchat to then branch out that you’ll then stumble across Beat Saber, Rolling Line, Furious Seas, Tales of Glory, SuperHot VR, & etc. I’ve owned my Rift for a year now that I do not regret it, not even in the slightest, that I’ve enjoyed my time since I’ve purchased it till now. I’ve gained it since December and I’m proud that people always see me playing VRchat. I may not have 1000 hours as the streamers & such, though people still see me hiding in VRchat having lots of fun.

      The flaws of VR though is the Rift’s cheap cable that I wish it was a braided USB cable so it wouldn’t tangle. Mine has horrible tangle. The other flaw of VR is how tardy and “lazy” game developers are making excuses as to why they can’t add VR support that they’re simply shooting themselves in the foot. I love VRchat, and I keep going back because of the things the community makes that it tends to show what the tardy game developers can do if they had the drive & will to do so. The major flaw though is how narcissistic Oculus seems to be that they wanted their Oculus program to over-ride SteamVR while being the main hub instead of SteamVR. Things were running smoother when SteamVR was the only thing running, now we have both. Oculus is being narcisticly greedy, but I still love my Rift.

      I’m happy, and I’m constantly making a list of VR games people could play if they chose to play VR. There’s a nice chunk out there that people have yet to discover, same with myself. I however wish Bandai-Namco would release a Gundam VR game for BOTH PSVR & VR that it would make a very nice noticeable dent in the market. Instead, we have to rely on Madnug VR to fill in that void.

      I hate the excuses game developers make saying the VR market is small while not making movement to support it. OF COURSE it’s going to be small if you don’t add to the VR gaming pool. You have to put effort in to make it more worthwhile that people will also pick up your game in VR if you give VR support. The more supportive you make your game the more likely people will touch your game that it then comes to if you don’t add VR to your game that your game is doing something wrong in general. I love SpicyWolf VR’s take on the whole “adding to VR” side of things.

  • theonlyrealconan

    Poop. I did not know it was dying. I just got the odyssey plus delivered. I was having fun with it. But i guess I really was not/will send it back post haste. :(

    • victor

      lol

    • Jistuce

      Don’t worry, it may be dying but so is everything else. You can enjoy it while it yet lives.

  • MosBen

    If/When PSVR hits 4 million units that’s going to look an awful lot like a mainstream success to me. Is it “my grandmother uses one every day” mainstream? No, but once a console hits a couple million users it starts to look like a successful platform that developers are willing to take a gamble on.

    That said, I would definitely be interested to know what the software sales are like. I’m sure that developers care less about whether people are putting 200 hours into Skyrim or Beat Saber and more about whether people who have HMDs hooked up to their PCs are buying new games ever few weeks/months.

    • grabma

      No. 4 million is not mainstream success at all by a large margin. In fact that’s shitty. Compare it to the poor Vita (14 million units), Wii U (13 million units). Number of users is also a bad argument for the success of something. Remind yourself of every Wii accessory and the Kinect (35 million units). All failed.

      Your hobby is still niche. Hardly above the Ouya.

      • Rowdy123

        Also – VR is “usually” played by just the owner. WiiU is played by more household members. So it is really 13×2 or something.

        • MosBen

          That doesn’t really make sense. Developers don’t care if your friend comes over and plays on your WiiU unless it inspires him to go out and buy his own. The WiiU sold 13 million units, assuming those numbers are accurate, and wasn’t considered a success.

          But my point isn’t that if the PSVR sells 4 million units then VR is suddenly mainstream. My point is that there’s a difference between a niche community supported by Kickstarters and one where an accessory to a popular gaming device sells millions of units. That’s an important step for VR, even if the hope is that products like the Quest sell even more.

      • MosBen

        I didn’t say that it was a mainstream, success, just that it was starting to get there. I don’t know where I’d put that line exactly, but there’s a big difference between several million units sold and several hundred thousand.

        And console sales really aren’t a good comparison for a hardware accessory sold midway through a console’s life cycle. And as I tried to indicate in my post, I’m not saying that selling 4 million units is the kind of mainstream success that the VR community is hoping for, or which it will need down the road, but it’s still a far cry from a community based around Kickstarters.

      • benz145

        Don’t discount the fact that it’s the most expensive console accessory (ever?) and still selling in the millions. At 3 million confirmed sales, and assuming an average selling price of $400, that’s $1.2 billion in revenue alone, before counting any software sales. It’s small compared to the scale of console sales themselves, but becoming and increasingly difficult to ignore revenue stream.

        • Who’s this?

          And that’s running late into the life of the console that was never made to do this. They used PS Move controllers, one camera, etc. It’s good screens with a low quality experience otherwise.

          All that and people STILL love it. If that’s the case, then it’s poised to be a massive success as time goes on, a PS5 + VR launch will blow everything out of the water.

      • namekuseijin

        it’s a major success for an upcoming new tech which is way more expansive than yet another flawed nintendo console or a poorly sold portable system… try harder, hater

      • DeusVult

        It’s the old “Emperor’s New Clothes” syndrome around here. VR has little to show for itself in terms of quality content; most of the time my Rift collects dust in a corner while I play games of actual quality on my 3440×1440 monitor. And I started with the DK2, very, very disappointing journey to date. It’s the reason my friends have not bothered, the cost plus the lack of practically any compelling content.

    • care package

      I thought PSVR was at 2 million.

      • MosBen

        The story says that it’s at 3 million, before the holiday 2018 sales. It might fall short of 4 million before the year is out, but I’m speculating that it’ll get there sooner rather than later.

      • Badboyfx86

        We’ll you obviously thought wrong

        • care package

          Ya my bad. There’s a first time for everything I guess

          • Badboyfx86

            Yup

    • deadkat37

      I have bought more games on PSVR + Rift in the past couple of years than any other platform (the longevity of it has definitely moved beyond the realms of ‘novelty’ gaming experiences such as Kinect and Wiimote).

      The question of developer gamble vs. sales numbers is a strange equation – there must be dozens of indie releases on PS4 and Steam each week that sink without trace because (good or bad) it is a cloned game mechanic with nothing to distinguish it (pixel art no longer cuts it!)

      Any VR compatible title has an immediate captive audience hungry for content – surely this has to be a better bet for many small developers?

      • In support of what you said: I’ll offer that since 2016’s VR launches, I’ve been buying far more software than I’d bought in several years. Back when PSVR first launched, every two weeks when I’d get paid I’d hit the PSN store for something new to buy & download. Since then, that’s slowed down just a bit, but not until after I had over 100 VR games in my collection. Now, that money is being split between PSVR & SteamVR games –and sadly, a few 2D games I’d recently bought are not being played at all (nothing wrong with the games themselves… I’m just too addicted to VRChat, Elite:Dangerous, and the PC version of Skyrim VR to take the time to get back in there and play (RDR2 & Overload on PS4; love both games, but SteamVR has all my attention recently due to buying my new headset (Odyssey+); though, if the news about RDR2 possibly getting PCVR support bears results, I may simply move to playing that in VR too.)

        Something the naysayers don’t seem to have considered… some of us that invest in VR hardware are not just buying more games, but often multiple copies so that we can play cross-platform (amongst other reasons). Not only are we ensuring VR proliferates, but through our support of VR as users, we’re helping the next generation of game developers find their footing in what’s become a whole new gaming market-segment. Just as often, many of us VR users are out there on a daily basis, evangelizing VR on forums, social networks, and in direct discussions, which leads to more sales of more hardware & software from more users getting onboard. The only things that have really slowed adoption down are (1) price and (2) the occasional non-conditioned user that got sick from not taking community precautions into consideration that turns around and starts running their head because in their mind, if it made them sick, then it must be horrible for everyone else too or it damn well better be, else they’ll raise hell to no end… it’s nothing more than soured grapes (aka, sore losers).

        Really, anything that isn’t all inclusive by default is always going to have its detractors, and VR unfortunately has had to deal with that pretty much directly. Since 2016, I’ve been prone to use the analogy of skydiving; basically saying that in the same way no one is born knowing how to skydive, no one is born ready to use VR –personal readiness for VR comes from acclimation and those who’ve had extensive experience with playing heavily 3D games seem to fair much better overall, but good luck getting that point across to someone who’s prejudicially decided that VR must be a gimmick (which I feel was the primary point of view coming out of Fortune, WSJ, and especially Game Informer in relation to VR **up until the point of AstroBot’s release… then, once they had a cutesy platformer, they’re all a-gush about it. (Don’t get me wrong, I love AstroBot too, but it’s ironic that there having already been several really good VR games, those media outlets kept dishing hard on VR, while it was obvious from their writing that their staff simply didn’t have what it takes to be a VR reviewer –which is why most of the VR community has turned to dedicated VR reviewers on Youtube that aren’t going to whine and complain about VR itself, but rather get busy showing us what we came to see. I swear, after the last 2 years, I have no respect for Fortune, WSJ, and GI left at all, because their lack of even trying was pathetic and made more so by their negative views that were obviously due to their own personal shortcomings as individuals, not due to something lacking with VR. Just because I can’t run a triathlon doesn’t mean I should feel obligated to write articles being down on those who can, but that seems to me to be exactly what the aforementioned media outlets did. Meanwhile, we –the VR community, are out here proving them dead wrong.

      • Same here. Since the arrival of VR, I’ve bought more games than I ever have for any previous generation’s platforms –and I’ve owned every single one since the Atari 2600. With VR, I’m buying games at 2 to 3 times the rate of any other system I’ve ever owned.

        WIth as many VR games as I already have, 2 years into VR, I’m still always hungry for something new and mind blowing. Over the last several weeks, I went and bought a new VR-ready PC and Samsung Odyssey+, and even though I’d already put in hundreds of hours on them both on PS4, I repurchased copies of both Skyrim VR and Elite:Dangerous to play on my PCVR system, and have started new campaigns on each.

        There’s really something incredible about the first time you launch in Elite:Dangerous while playing it in VR. While it starts differently than the PS4 version –on a planet, instead of out in an asteroid field, and seemed to be more geared toward someone already knowing how to play it, it was truly breathtaking to look back over my shoulder, out the rear of the craft’s canopy to see the planet falling away behind me like an actual launch into space. It’s one thing to see that game running flat, but a whole other thing to experience being in that ship, launching off the surface of some back-water world.

        Skyrim VR on PC has also been worth the re-purchase, because of it’s modability –though so far, I’ve been content just to replay through the stock campaign while I rebuild my character to resemble the one I’d built on the PS4 + PSVR. The resolution increase, alone, is stunning on the Odyssey+, and I’m playing it with an XB1X gamepad, so the control layout is basically identical to all of the console versions’ defaults, and plays smooth as silk. As much as I love the PSVR version, it convinced me that the PC version was far superior when I was talking with the Jarl in Whiterun and could make out the details of the iris’ of his eyes (which was basically impossible on the PSVR, even in spite of the patch that increased that build’s resolution).

        All that said though, I still play my PSVR too, and just broke out Tetris Effect a few nights ago for some VR action with a more relaxed pace to match how tired I was overall… I wanted to game, but not something that would require 100% of my concentration, and I’ve played Tetris for years and years. Tetris Effect, being made by the dev behind Lumines, is the best version of Tetris I’ve ever played. Even when I don’t play anything on my PSVR within a week though, I still manually update everything on my machine every week or so, so that there’s no wait when anyone in my house wants to play.

        PSVR, I think, is very well suited to being the first VR platform made for the masses –particularly due to it’s plug-and-play nature. While PCVR systems have gotten a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a pain at times, by the time I picked up my new system, a lot of the initially rough software had been refined quite a bit. At this point, I’m finding very little to complain about on either platform, and I’m really happy overall with the games we’ve begun to see –as after the first year or so, we began seeing quite a few more non-indie developers start to get involved in VR projects. It’s hard to say with certainty, but I think 2019/2020 will be when VR begins to show market strength, and by 2023/2024 will begin to reach critical mass (more VR systems in play than alternatives). But in order for that to happen, we *all* have *our work cut out for us* –meaning that as early adopters of this technology, it falls upon us as fans to evangelize VR, much in the same way we evangelized PC gaming during the early days of first person shooters; this is primarily because there aren’t enough public demos going on, and in order for others to understand what we’re on about, they need to see it for themselves.

    • namekuseijin

      I’ve bought more than 50, including major releases as Skyrim, Astro Bot, Déraciné, Farpoint, Dirt Rally, etc. and plenty of great indies (but no shovelware, sorry)

      then again, I’m an old gamer and has been sold on the idea of VR since the early days of atari and Tron. not many people obsess this much, I guess…

      • deadkat37

        anecdotal evidence I have picked up from forums is that most VR enthusiasts are “older gamers” living a dream that dates back to the 80s/90s!

        • namekuseijin

          yes, and that now have the money to buy such luxuries while kids these days relive the 80/90s on their nintendo swiindie. oh, the ironies of life…

    • According to stats that hit Reddit a few days ago, the 4 million units mark has been reached. :)

  • Arcticu Kitsu

    VR is only dying to those that don’t own VR, or parrot things they’ve read other people say. I’ve had pretty nasty fight with anti-VR people, and I guess I’ll keeping having them because it even goes as far into a friend circle. I’ve even seen them using lame excuses linking VR with 3D TVs missing the point of interaction and immersion. Point of VR is that you can wear & have fun, something that flew over my friend’s head as well. “IF” VR is indeed dying you can blame Bandai-Namco for failing to take advantage of a void by not making a Gundam VR game for both PSVR & PC, something that would help bridge a gap. It’s not the “main” game, just that it would saturate a good chunk of the VR market. Someone was to make a Macross VR game but that fell through. Those voids need to be filled, and soon.

    VR isn’t as dead as people say it is, nor is it fragile. Nobody wants to take proper advantage of it. There have been developers quietly giving their game support while others make lame excuses to not enable VR support for their games. Those that added VR support saw love while those that denied VR support because of “small market” only adding to the problem of “VR dying” fears & rumours. You have to put effort, something some game developers just don’t want to do because they expect a “magical pillar” to support them. I’m thankful for Spicytails for making ‘Spice & Wolf VR’ that they have the right mentality that they saw a void, thus filling it. More game developers need to take that initiative. If you see a void, fill it.

    It’s amazing… It’s as if you have to do work to support things. It’s not going to magically support itself that you have to put effort into things. If you honestly build the right game people WILL come, and they have in various ways. Maybe I’m partially wrong here, who knows.

  • Lucidfeuer

    Let the PR bullshit to the crowds, it won’t change anything if not will hinder the drives to push VR where it needs to be. Classic story.

  • brandon9271

    I think VR would be doing much better if years old VR port like Skyrim were more plentiful, not full price ($60) and not half assed. I got bored with “casual experiences” a few years ago.

    • care package

      I would totally agree. Alien Isolation ruined VR for me. No short burst motion controlled gamercising even comes close to the feeling of being in another complex world than AI did. The ‘experiences’ have their perks, but it’s ultimately not what I wanted in VR. I tried my ass off to play Arktika. Game was so repetitive it got boring enough I just couldn’t do it anymore. Uninstalled.

  • Rowdy123

    Even my wife who has never touched a game controller in her life and thought VR was like reading a pop-up book … is now playing. Enough said.

    • care package

      I noticed early on VR was something chicks were often digging as opposed to traditional video games, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing (for traditional gamers). Also it makes me wonder how long the honey moon is going to last. Chicks might dig VR, but how soon till she gets sick of it.

  • victor

    It’s too late for VR to die! VR tech can only get better (fov, res) and cheaper. Let’s face it gaming was made for VR and everyone who tries proper VR knows it!

    • MW

      Cheaper? Really…?

      • Arcticu Kitsu

        Oculus Rift used to be $1300 USD that it dropped down to around $500. Mixed Reality is also a decent entry level device that people used that before jumping onto Oculus Rift/HTC Vive or Vive Pro. Sure, you have to make sure your computer is up to spec, just the VR hardware becoming far more accessible, cheaper, and reliable each year.

        Then there’s Oculus Quest, just not at the level of standard VR, though may be far more entry level than Mixed Reality now and those Mobile VR headsets. There’s something for everybody that the VR market is making sure there is.

        Edit:
        Or the PSVR thing where you can just plug-in and play from the PS4 side of things. Things are becoming cheaper & more accessible.

        • benz145

          Rift + Touch launched at $800 together and after a few price drops have come down to $400.

  • Gonzalo Novoa

    I love VR but what I really want is your house! LOL

    • namekuseijin

      I’d be ok with a 360 video of his house :)

  • care package

    Those who say VR is dying are few and far between. Why even give them attention. I wouldn’t even say that and I don’t do shit in VR anymore.

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      “Few & far”, maybe. I’m constantly stumbling across them on every game thread requesting VR support that they say “Why make a game for a small market?” that they bring up 3D TVs, and such. My friend even says VR is dying……

      Maybe it’s a perspective thing….. But yeah, we probably shouldn’t be giving the trolls attention that developers capable of VR should be spotlighted while developers not making games for a small markets should be shunned and mocked. Let’s praise Spicytails VR for seeing a void, adding to it :)

      • care package

        Maybe I’m just not getting around as much anymore.

      • Jistuce

        I keep seeing people demanding flatscreen and controller support to VR-only games, even when it doesn’t make sense. Last week I saw someone demanding flatscreen/gamepad for Beatsaber, of all things.

        • Arcticu Kitsu

          Now that you’ve mentioned it I did see those threads on Steam forums that it’s baffling at times. I mean, it does make your game more appealing, welcoming, and attractive because you can play it in both mods. VRchat, Slime Rancher, Scanner Sombre… I guess people want it that way.

          Beat Saber though, that would be tricky. Beat Saber would work better on a smart phone device. I’ve seen people suggest IronWolf VR to be desktop mode when we have Silent Hunter 3 & UBOAT to fill in that void.

          For some of those games I don’t know what people are thinking that it’s more of a troll, I guess. Naiveness, or something.

          • Jistuce

            Honestly, I think a lot of the commenters simply don’t understand the concept of VR, or haven’t kept up with advances since the original Rift launch. They think it is basically just a 3D display strapped to your face.

            If this perception was accurate, it would make their requests logical. I was always baffled why Battlezone VR didn’t support flatscreen from day one, for instance. It is seated and played with a gamepad. The jump from there to 2D isn’t far. It is more immersive in a headset, but that’s all it really gains.

            But something that tracks your movement as a major gameplay element is REALLY hard to abstract back to a gamepad(ignoring that they also wouldn’t be FUN), and I don’t think most of the complainers realize that’s how current VR works. They think it is all like Battlezone VR, Cars 2, etc.

            It really is something that has to be experienced to understand, and that seems to be the biggest issue. Which I guess means internet comments help make the sales understandable. If more of these people “got” VR, they’d get VR.

  • Benjamin Denes Hoyt
  • Wayne Singh

    There are many things that tell me VR isnt dying. Its in a bit of a weird place at the moment but it will continue to get better. Just look at how many companies are working on hardware at the moment as an indication that the market is still viable. Also jump on Facebook and search for VR groups. Have a look at how many people are in those groups and you start to get some indication of how strong this market is. On top of that, how many schools are now including VR in their classrooms? We are getting kids excited about VR which means the next generation will not let it die.

    I have both a Rift and a Go. To be honest I use my Go more than my rift, simply because it is easier. Yes I still play my PC pretty much everyday, but I dont fire up the rift as much as I used to. My go I can be sitting on the couch and jump in for 10 minutes without any issues.

  • airball

    Some fair points made here, but not from the business side of things. If you take a look at that, the VR funding landscape in the Valley has completely dried up. No one is pitching VCs on VR heading into 2019. Google has cut lots of internal resources on Daydream, and the industry is essentially at the mercy of Sony and FB at this point. If either of them pull the plug in the next 24 months, it’s officially VR winter again.

    • Proof XR Lab

      Daydream was scaled down 2 years back, i met one of the VR/AR team from London just before they got canned .

  • hubick

    Good news to the “Rollerblades are dying crowd”, more users have Rollerblades in their closet than ever before!

    • benz145

      This data is specifically about headsets plugged into computers and ready to be used, which is why it’s a key data point. Actual unit sales are larger than the numbers talked about here.

      • hubick

        Mine spent it’s whole life plugged into the computer. That doesn’t mean people bother to actually strap it on or do anything with it.

  • I’ve read another positive article on VR on TechCrunch… maybe finally we’ll stop seeing all those “VR is a fad” posts?

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      Hopefully. I’m happy I’m seeing PSVR doing awesome with $3 million sales with help from Beat Saber. Falcon Age should also help boost those sales when it releases, as well as Spice & Wolf VR.
      https://www.reddit.com/r/PSVR/comments/a22hev/rpsvr_statistics_update_november_rollercoaster/

      People are just jealous & envious that they themselves can’t play, or simply taking advantage of the situation :P. Also loved the comment saying such:
      ——–

      Really nice to see the rebound and then some with BF though. Pushing towards that threshold where developers find it harder to use the lack of profit excuse for ignoring VR.

  • jj

    what? have u used a vive or rift before? its pretty epic

  • impurekind

    The people who say VR is dying are ignorant. It’s a new and growing technology and platform, and we’re in the very early days of VR. Right now it’s the equivalent of where gaming was back in the early ’80s–so just imagine what it’s going to be like in ten or twenty or even thirty and more years time. Already it’s pretty mind blowing when used properly, and that’s only going to get better and better going forward. VR is absolutely the future of gaming and entertainment. And in saying that I’m not saying all the other forms are going to die–it’s just that VR is the next big paradigm.

  • Raphael

    Anti-VR trolls have a shared library of cliche rhetoric to throw at VR. Hopelessly out of date with their rhetoric and often completely lacking any accurate awareness.

    “VR is just a TV strapped to your head”

    “VR doesn’t give life-size graphics because the displays are tiny”

    “VR is fake because it uses 2d displays”, “I can make VR using an xbox and a TV”

    “VR died in the 90’s and it will die again”, “VR will fail like Kinect” (the belief that because one unrelated product failed mainstream gaming, VR must therefore follow the same fate)

    “XBox has sold way more than VR thus VR is a failure” (One is a console, the other is a display/control device… it’s like saying Xbox is a failure because car tyres have sold in way larger quantities.

    These are all things dumb people have said to me in their quest to kill VR.

    “VR has no games, only tech demos”

    “VR makes everyone sick”

    “VR is no good for fast action FPS because it uses teleport” (the belief that VR only has teleport)

  • I remember the Virtuality systems! :)
    Those were the 2nd VR platform I’d used. The first was proprietary, made for a shop in Las Vegas, Nevada (US). The shop was “Virtual Travel”, though I’m not sure what the platform was called, but it ran 2 games: (1) Mechwarrior Arena, and (2) Red Planet.

    The prior game was FASA licensed, and the shop even had a roughly 1.75 meter tall Madcat mech in their lobby that appeared to be constructed (very accurately) out of polished surgical steel. The gameplay was arena based, and was one of the first games I’d played that supported more than 4 players –in the 2 rounds I played, we had around 30 players in all. Anyway, this was around 1994, just prior to the launch of Mechwarrior 2, during a time in which FASA was busy suing Dynamix over their similar game, Earthsiege (PC; 486 era).

    The other game, Red Planet, was a rather odd racing game set on Mars in a futuristic city that looked somewhat like an abstract version of the city in Blade Runner. The course was a single loop, but iirc, the race-craft had weapons. It was all too short for what it cost, but thinking back, iirc, it was powered by a pretty powerful (by that day’s standards) SGI system of some sort… never laid eyes on it, but it would have been about the only thing at the time to be able to handle it all, aside from a Cray –and those were hundreds of millions at the time, versus 1/2 million average for a setup like what they used for Lawnmower Man.

    Looking back on all that, I’m that much more blown away by how far it’s all come, and more so that I was there pretty much every step of the way that I could be… the memories of our era, versus that of our grandparents…. they saw the launch of the space program, while we saw the launch of the internet, then VR, where we can explore our universe from the comfort of a desk-chair.

  • Dactyl Nightmare –that was the one I played when a Virtuality system showed up at my local mall a year or so after I’d gone to Virtual Travel in Vegas. Man, those graphics were awful! (LOL) Though, that’s relative to what else I was playing at the time… iirc, mainly Atari Jaguar, 3DO, and old DOS games… this would have been about a year before Quake (1) launched, which at the time had some of the best graphics available in a game, but then Descent 2 launched with 3D accelerator support, and not much later, 3Dfx burst onto the scene and changed everything… prior to Nvidia showing up and blowing them out of their own market.

    What was that HMD that was popular back then… the VFX3D? I think that was it… I remember it showed up in Aerosmith’s video for “Crying”, along with Logitech’s Cyberman 3D mouse, which was billed as an early VR device… only thing is, at the time, VR didn’t take off, so that controller languished in disuse. I had the Logitech controller, but it was worthless in most of my games, so I reverted back to using Thrustmaster’s old flightstick… the one that was a clone of the F16’s actual stick, that came with a flightsim… I can’t remember the name of it, but it was overly technical and played slow as Christmas… I was so glad when games like Air Combat (technically, Ace Combat 1) showed up to bring Action-flight-sims to the fore.

    OMG! Shadowrun! I loved that game! Me and my friends used to play that one, Gamma World, and (of course) AD&D, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Ravenloft, & Dark Sun –though we never ran a Dragonlance campaign even though we were all mad fans of the art and writing. But Shadowrun always held a special place in my heart because of its fusion of fantasy and cyberpunk. I remember I used to favor Street Samurais at first, but later on when to playing Deckers, exclusively. Oddly enough, a few months ago, I found myself driving one day while thinking it’d be great to have a Rigger’s cortical patch to neural-link my car.

    Speaking of Mechwarrior… I read that MW5 is now officially in development, and due out in 2020-2021. Hopefully, by the time it drops, it’ll have full VR support –but being what it is, and the legacy it has… I’ll totally understand if either it doesn’t support VR, or supports it equally with a non-VR mode. I just hope the next one improves upon MW4’s design instead of going for a whole new design from scratch, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they did… thinking back, each of the Mechwarrior titles on PC seemed like they started over from scratch when they built them… even Mech Assault (original Xbox) seemed to have a unique engine (that got thrown out during the making of the sequel… which to me, was arguably not as good as the original).

    (now… here I am, staring at the clock in anticipation of heading home to dive into VR… I don’t think any video game medium has ever drawn me in like VR, and that’s with being a gamer since roughly 1981).

  • Gato Satanista

    Now, what you wating for to spend some extra bucks in a “cable holder” (sorry, bad english here) for these wires? I saw some in some events. It gives you much more freedom in the space.

  • It’s all happening like I said it would 3 years ago, when the Rift CV1 was announced to cost $600 w/o hand tracking. That speed bump killed the hype bubble, and now that the prices are acceptable, the hype bubble’s a distant memory.

    That hype bubble was helping to suck in AAA-Developers, but now most of them have backed off. Our future Killer-Apps are on hold. It’s back to “Wait and See” for them, which is only going to keep hardware adoption slow.

    Hopefully some adventurous developer like insomniac will make a KILLING with one of their VR games. There needs to be a BIG HIT, a $50 Million dollar star, drop’n panties and empty’n bank accounts. Something so profitable, the AAA-Developers will have no choice but to join in just to stay relevant.

  • FriendlyCard

    Excellent article!

  • Gato Satanista

    ” For now it’s a fancy way to play simple mobile games… ” Absurdly wrong. VR has complex games: The Forest, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Lone Echo, Chronos, Seeking Down, Doom VFR… Are these mobile games for you? “… not a simulation of reality.” What drugs are you taking? Sitting in a couch looking to a flat screen are no reality simulation either, but guess what? Is fun. VR is no simulation of reality but has some pretty acurate simulation of some aspects of physical interaction and play. But yes, is not a simulation of reality, is a “videogame” and a “spacial computing system” for now. ” Your positive thoughts can’t cachge that.” More nonsene. I trully enjoy the current experience that VR can offer right now. There is no positive toughts envolved in this.

  • Raphael

    VR has been on an upward development and sales trend since it first emerged from the labs decades ago. All that’s happening now is a transient dip after gen one sales peaked. This is the momentary calm before we cross into gen one plus and gen 2. The sales and development curves are still on the same gradual climb they’ve been on since the early 70s. The only persistent downward trend for VR is the cost. That’s been on a constant descending curve for decades. VR is an inevitable technology. It’s only going to continue on its upward development and sales curves.

  • Arcticu Kitsu

    “calm down man” is used when someone backs the person into a corner that this doesn’t look promising for MW. But yeah, you are indeed entitled to your own opinion and observation, just that nobody proved your observation “correct”.

    Those PC games he mentioned are still modern. Weird and clunky? What part? VRchat has many neat worlds for you check out that you can see some highly realistic worlds that one of them is named ‘Rendezvous’ with highly detailed textures that you can see far and wide. Same with ‘Heavy Cruiser Suzuya’ in the same game. VRchat is the hub for VR, or should be seen as such with the community doing more than developers have, or shown. There’s a nice chunk of “realistic” museum type games for VR that you can check them out that you can see high detail, more so than in desktop mode, that you can make all the nuts and bolts properly. There’s more depth in VR than desktop mode that you feel like you’re actually there.

    It’s a shame certain people aren’t trying out VRchat to explore worlds people have made to show what developers could actually make without whining. Other than Beat Saber there’s also Rolling Line, Tales of Glory, Furious Seas, Ultrawings, and more. Titanic: Honor & Glory has VR support with realistic museum high-resolution quality for you to check out.

    Yeah, we’re all waiting for more VR games while developers whine and moan like little toddlers saying they won’t gain their profit or that the VR community is “Small” that they expect to be spoon fed. If you want effort to be made you have to work for it that these developers are pampered. They can fire back all they want that their product would speak louder than words. Flipside to what you’ve said is that there’s also a nice heavy chunk of VR games to play already with FOV & etc, just have to look instead of trying to knock on the VR market. Zero Caliber VR is one of them.

    • MW

      ‘Calm down’ is the way to talk to someone using phrases like: What drugs are you taking?

      You trying to convince me that playing games like Skyrim of Fallout in VR is not comfortable, and clunky? It is.
      ‘Highly detailed textures’ where you can’t read text, see details or see anything in distance of several meters (I also have 4k headset)? No.
      VR is not VR yet. We all know how it tu supposed to be, we all have this dream But hardware is not there yet, and it not will be for many years.

      I agree that now’s the time for experiments and development. But this requires money. So, in my predictions VR will not develop until other tech (like traditional gaming) will not give VR proper hardware (like it was for Palmer). It’s great that VR have enthusiast, like you. But you will not convince average Joe to spend 1k on gpu, 1k on headset to see a preview of possibilities of VR.

      VRchat? Interesting idea. But why people don’t using video when they are talking to each other through smartphones? Because it is not necessary for communication, and takes time. Same story with VR chat – and this is additionally very expensive, and takes a lot of space. So, no, you don’t convince me.

      • Arcticu Kitsu

        What you speak is utter BS. Everything you said is complete and utter BS that it’s just you being disconnected from reality with you not knowing what you’re talking about. More so with the VRchat side where you bring up the whole point of “video” that it’s a “WOOOOSH” point. Go Youtube some videos of VRchat to see what it actually is about, and it isn’t only about socializing and memes. You explore games within a game that it’s a hub for VR. It’s not just a chat program, it’s where people make and post content for others to also explore and enjoy while socializing.

        I’ll admit I haven’t played Skyrim, nor Fallout VR, yet want to. Price is a bit hefty that I held off but with it on sale for $40 CAD that I just might try it out “soon” to see how Skyrim at least handles in VR. Scanner Sombre is similar with the movement with how you teleport that it’s a bit frustarting, yet actually quite fine and fun. When you enjoy a game’s gameplay you can ignore the faults, even using them to your advantage that it was fun teleporting past drop off points. You use the game’s disadvantages to your benefit, that’s how gamers roll.

        >VR is not VR yet.But you will not convince average Joe to spend 1k on gpu, 1k on headset to see a preview of possibilities of VR.<

        Sounds like you're just parroting at this point that I had to make sure my PC was up to spec. Mixed Reality headsets are about $300 while Rift is more around $500. HTC Vive is more $700, or whichever it is in USD conversions. What the "average joe" looks at is the fun factor that the more fun VR is the more likely they'll go after it, thus people buying headsets for both VRchat & Beat Saber mainly. The easiest option here would also be to purchase a PS4 for a PSVR side of things because the line up is strong there for around $500, or whatever it's listed as. Falcon Age is something people are eyeing that they'll purchase enmass when it releases that it'll rise to Beat Saber popularity from the signs shown. If the game is fun people will be baited to play save up for a headset, and thus they have. Just look at all the headset purchase retweets on Beat Saber and similar VR game twitter accounts :P

        I will however agree with you games cost money. That's where indie developers win over AAA game companies that they PUSH and PUSH and PUSH until they get their dream game out there that the more they care about their game the more likely their game will see life. If they don't give a crap about their game they start tantruming saying the market is "too small" or start stating money problems. The more a game developer cares the more they push, thus rewarded by their player base supporting them….

  • oompah

    VR headsets cost 2X times in developing countries

  • care package

    There is only one race. It’s called the human race.

  • Patrick McKee

    Yeah I would like to know how Roadtovr thought we thought VR was dying? People are slow sometimes…

    • Arcticu Kitsu

      Steam forums with all the VR games, Reddit postings, and Youtube comments claiming VR is dying, a gimmick, a fad, or whatever nonsense people keep spouting about VR. People also noting how VR shall die a 3D TV’s death, whatever that means. They’re not the same. One is one directional, the other you can move around freely.

  • domahman

    3D pron where you can interact with the model., this would set vr on fire. *Blowup doll not included.

  • DeusVult

    Shoddy journalism at best; how many of those users have multiple VR HMDs? How many are actually using them on regular basis?

  • Tom Szaw

    I am curious about December 2018 stats. I am one of those who bought Samsung Odyssey+ and Geforce 2080 RTX in November. Black Friday and Odyssey+ for 299 USD, imported it to Europe. Odyssey+ is super amazing. I have comparison to Oculus Rift (I worked with it). Rift sucks compared to Odyssey+

  • Veraxus

    That looks like very stable growth! As VR gets more affordable, you’ll see the curve trend upward. Likewise, don’t forget that this is only PC VR users… not standalone users or VR users on other platforms (e.g. PSVR).